Former Chelsea coach Avram Grant takes over the reins of NorthEast United FC

A day after NorthEast United FC parted ways with its coach Joao de Deus, the soccer franchise co-owned by Bollywood actor John Abraham, have appointed former Chelsea coach Avram Grant as the technical advisor, who will also double up as a stand-in coach for the remaining matches of this season’s Indian Super League (ISL).

With just a solitary win from their seven matches this season, the Highlanders are placed at disappointing ninth on the table with their chances of making it into the top four looking bleak.

Grant had a successful run during his stint at Chelsea FC where he didn’t lose a single home game of the season. Also, his team missed out on the Champions League title only on penalties in the 2007-08 season.

His last job was with Ghana wherein he saw his team lose in the AFCON finals in 2015 and was forced to put in his papers last year after they lost in the semi-finals. The ex-Chelsea chief helped the Black Stars continue their record of reaching the AFCON final four in two tournaments, while he deserves immense credit for advancing to the final in 2015 only months after taking the reins with the West Africans, detailed a report in Goal.

Grant reached Guwahati on Wednesday evening and has already taken the reigns. Their next game is against FC Goa on January 6.

The club management had earlier held series of meetings with certain players who expressed their ‘displeasure’ over de Deus’ techniques and strategies.

The 5-0 hammering in Pune last week was the final nail in the coffin for the club and the management has decide to call it quits for de Deus.

Ironically, Halicharan Narzary and Nirmal Chettri were left out of the 18 when they visited Pune.

On Tuesday last, goalkeeping coach Joseph Siddy was witnessed overseeing the training session and not de Deus.

Northeast Now is a multi-app based hyper-regional bilingual news portal. Led by a group of professionals, the digital news platform covers every inch of the eight states of northeast India and the five neighbouring countries. It is the first of its kind new media initiative in the northeast, and is based in Guwahati. As the political dynamics in the northeast is intricate and fluid, Northeast Now is always politically neutral.